Jeffry Dwight - Writing - Breath to Me of Summer

Breath to Me of Summer
by Jeffry Dwight

Breath to Me of Summer

Today I saw an apple-cheeked little fellow with blond hair, clear blue eyes which sparkled like gems, and long black lashes which brushed his cheeks when he blinked or looked down. It was a day borrowed from next summer. A light breeze ruffled his hair like a father’s hand. The bright sunlight put blue in his blue jeans, white in his gym shoes, gleams in his milky teeth, and soft tan in his rumpled, unzipped jacket.

I saw him bent over his bicycle, a sturdy little boy, undoing the lock and chain. He had slender fingers, nimble and quick: gentle hands, a boy’s hands, soft-palmed and clever. Small. I saw him toss a leg over his bike. Impressions fluttered through me. Flash of white sock. Glint of steel rings in worn canvas shoes, one lace trailing. Smudge of mud along the cuff of his jeans. Stretch of limber thigh. Sure, confident, unconsciously amaranthine.

He didn’t squirm on his seat. He stood up on the pedals and pushed that contraption right toward me, hair flying, lips parted, cheeks rosy, knees going up and down, up and down. Seeing him like that made me think of something...something vague, like a memory washed out by time, or a speech whose words are almost but not quite forgotten. It was very familiar but very strange, like a best friend from childhood that one hasn’t seen in decades. I began to think of something, but then he smiled directly at me and his bike flew past like a hundred rockets all taking off at once, lit by his smile.

I caught just a whiff of his breath—like summer and goldenrod and fresh hay and apples. He breathed, I say, and I ceased breathing for a moment, just watching his knees go up and down, wild blond hair flying back, and this thought beginning somewhere way back in my mind. Odd. All over in a flash. Just a glimpse like that, an impression, really, no more...and then I was breathing again, tearing in huge gasps, and he was pedaling on past, eyes fixed on some distant goal, honey-skinned face crimsoning into delicate rose at the wind’s touch.

I almost forgot him. Maybe I would have forgotten him. He was the match that had started a fire in my mind, and all I could see for a few moments were the flames. It was a thought, nothing more, perhaps a memory, but it raged like an inferno.

A noise startled me, just as I was beginning to get a grasp on the memory. Perhaps the boy had started it. Or perhaps the boy had interrupted it...? I had been walking, you see, when I glimpsed the little boy. I going my way, he going his, all unconnected and separate, opposite directions. I had stopped when he breathed that wildness into my lungs, all unknowing: stopped to hold my breath and taste his youth and the sweetness of it all. But then I exhaled, and my next breath was regular air, the kind I usually get, somewhat dry, a bit stale, rather tired. Not at all like his. I don’t get to breathe summer often these days, and it started me thinking. Something from long ago. Something about.... But the loud noise whipped it away.

I almost didn’t turn around, because I knew, somehow, that the thought had been important. Yes, it was a memory, and I had to remember it. But the noise was too loud, and it startled me, so I had to turn, had to look. It was a horn and a screech of brakes. From a little red sports car with bright chrome trim, magnesium wheels and bucket leather seats. Here’s the crazy thing: I noticed the driver first. He wore a brown leather flight jacket, a red tie, and brown dress slacks. An executive, I suppose, the kind with enough money to buy the toys he’d always wanted as a child. Like that bright red car. Too small to be practical, but fast. Too fast.

Such a strange angle to be parked, sideways across the road like that, one door hanging open, traffic blocked. The man leaned on the open door and looked at something on the ground. I looked too. It was very quiet, and there was a spreading pool of red underneath the sports car.

Someone screamed, loud, too loud, suddenly chopped off, and I stopped breathing again. Then I was mincing, tiptoe, toward the car. One step, two. Then I was walking steadily. Loping, running, sprinting. Screaming through the air like a missile, but oh so slowly, so slow. Bright, bright red, incarnadine and vermeil. A white gym shoe pointing an accusing toe at heaven. A small, slender hand lying empty, fingers slightly curled, like a golden spider, dead, on its back. One wheel of the bike spinning around and around, lazy, slow. The other wheel twisted, still, a torn bit of shoelace caught in the chain. I saw these things, I say, and then everything went black and there was this tremendous roaring in my ears and my knees started to shake. The next thing I knew, they were pulling me away from the driver and there was blood on his face, blood on my fists. Someone was yelling, and I realized it was me so I shut up.

I shook off the restraining hands and knelt beside the boy, the boy who had breathed summer to me. I touched his cheek. It was cool, soft, pale, bloodless. And then I finally remembered the thought I had been trying to think, and it didn’t make any sense now. Please wake up, I said over and over. I want to buy you an ice-cream cone. It was the most important thing in the world to me just then. But blood soaked my knees where I knelt. So much blood from such a little boy, a little body. We’ll get you a new bike, I promised, but you have to wake up first. I touched his hair, his wrists, his hands. Please wake up. Then someone moved me away, and for some reason I was crying. Please, I said aloud. Please. But no one paused. The ambulance came screaming down the street, but I couldn’t hear it. I was far away by then. I couldn’t watch.

Crisp these moments, these winter days, and bitter the death of a child.

* * * * * I fled. A long way. Nine, I think...yes, I was nine years old. The air was hazy and warm, the sun beaming down and striking sparks from the murky green lake. Insects everywhere, me dressed only in swim trunks, my toes itching on the rough planks of the wharf where I dangled a fishing line.

No one had ever caught a fish in that lake, but I was willing to try because my father would be coming along soon, and I wanted to show him I could. Later, he’d said, when he had a chance. So you just go on down there and get started, Mom’d said, and he’ll be along. Okay.

I wriggled around, getting comfortable, waiting, checking the bait from time to time, dangling it for the non-existent fish. I watched a battle between a huge black ant and a tiny red one, me rooting for the little guy. Such a still afternoon, languid, not quite hot.

My hair was almost white back then, short-cropped, sticking up in crazy places. I was an angular boy with freckles, though not gaunt. Sweet-faced, my mother had once said, which always made me think of cherubs or girls. But my oldest brother said my freckles made me look diseased, and my sisters didn’t offer an opinion.

The wharf was made of thick old boards, nailed together haphazardly, stuck on the top of huge round pilings which sank away beneath me into green dimness. Seaweed-like slime clung above and below the water line. By lying flat on my stomach, I could peer through the gaps in the boards and smell the water. It was a heavy, green sort of smell.

I checked the bait again. The ants were still fighting. Fierce, these tiny creatures. I sucked on a loose tooth and watched them sway back and forth across the planking between my toes. Finally the little red one won, but only because I flicked the black one off into the lake with my fingernail.

It was getting late. Still no fish, and the sun was westering rapidly. Where was Dad? But wait! was that a tug? I pulled up on the pole and almost fell into the water when I felt an answering yank. There was a reel, but it didn’t work, so I hauled the line in by hand, frantic, excited, dancing a bit, yelling, almost letting my prize escape. But then I had him there up on the wharf, and he lay there gasping at me, whiskers twitching, eyes glaring, tail flapping madly.

I was scared to touch it, but I did. I hit it with a rock until it stopped moving, and then I took out my penknife and went to work. It was sort of flattened by then, rather messy, and I had never done anything like that before. I kept glancing at the road, expecting to see Dad any minute. He’d promised to take me into town later, to the new ice-cream parlor, and I knew he’d be coming along real soon. It took me almost an hour to clean and gut that catfish, and there wasn’t much left when I’d finally finished. Would Dad have been proud of me then? I cleaned off the knife, the wharf and myself, and set the pitiful catfish on the boards beside me. Still no Dad; still no cheery, booming hallo echoing over the water; no strong arms with big, trustworthy hands; no sure and steady step; no happy laughter. Just me and the naked fish and the sun setting behind me.

I got up and went to find him. He must’ve forgotten. But that’s okay, ‘cause I’ll show him the fish, the first fish I ever caught, and then we’ll go into town like he promised and have ice-cream, and everything will be wonderful. I trudged along, knobby knees going up and down, cracking with each step, bare feet popping on poured concrete, scrunching across gravel, slithering through hip-deep wild grass. I wondered if Mom would cook the catfish for supper.

There were a lot of people at the summer house when I finally got there: all my brothers and sisters, extra cars, grown-ups I didn’t know. I felt an odd, prickly feeling along my spine and my ears burned. There was a doctor there, too, and I slipped in the back door, through the kitchen, into the parlor. Mom was sitting in a circle of other grown-ups, crying.

I went to her, forgetting I had the fish clutched in my hands. She saw it and me. Get it out of here, she said, not real tender but not real fierce either. But Dad was supposed to meet me, I protested. He’ll want to see this. Where is he? Mom started crying real hard then and gathered me up in her arms, fish and all. I felt smothered. She wouldn’t let go, so my oldest brother came and took me away and gave me the news.

Dad’s dead, he told me.

But...but he was going to meet me, take me into town. He promised!

Shut up, he said, and slapped me. Just you shut up.

When? I asked, when did it happen?

About noon, he told me, so you just be quiet.

Noon? I was there all day, smelling the water, watching the ants, catching my first fish, and nobody even told me? Why? I asked, why didn’t you tell me?

We forgot about you, said my brother, and after that I was very quiet.

* * * * * I found myself kneeling on the sidewalk before a little girl, peering into her face. She stared back at me, a pretty little elfin thing. Long black hair, a yellow dress, matching ribbons. Wide, very wide eyes, the color of a late autumn sky.

She looked at my pants, saw the bloodstains there, then looked back at my face. She began to edge away.

Listen, I said urgently, don’t run away from me. I want to buy you an ice-cream cone.

I was babbling. I waved my arms and pleaded with her, then stopped, suddenly fascinated by the dried blood caked around my fingernails. Whose? The little boy’s, the driver’s, or mine?

The girl made a small sound in the back of her throat, then screamed and ran away. Wait! I called after her. I won’t hurt you! I just...I just want to be...nice. I stopped shouting. People were looking at me, and this was a small town. I stood up, brushed feebly at my clothes, and walked off. I was dizzy, weak, tired. Odd, these winter days, these moments.

A young man stood before me, dressed in midnight blue with a truncheon at his hip and a stern look on his face. I knew him, of course; I remember watching him run around on the playground when he was little. Not any more. Never again.

Come on, Pops, he said.

I’m not old, I said. But he took my arm and I was too weak to pull away.

Let’s get you home.

There was an accident, I murmured, a boy....

I know, he said, we saw you there. Did you know him?

Know him? I wondered. Why, I suppose I did. His name? No, never heard that. Never saw him before. But I knew him, oh, yes. Very well.

The young policeman’s eyes crinkled strangely, and he put an arm on my shoulder. He walked me in silence for several blocks, and left me at length at my door.

A light snow was falling, just beginning, hardly even sticking to the hoods of cars which had been parked for hours. My borrowed summer day was fading, withdrawing, disintegrating.

Today I saw a little boy, an apple-cheeked fellow with blond hair, clear blue eyes which sparkled like gems, and long black lashes which brushed his cheeks when he blinked or looked down.

I saw him bent over his bicycle, a sturdy little boy. He smiled at me, and breathed to me of summer, and, just for a moment, I loved him.

Crisp, these late-winter days, these feelings, and fleeting the smile of a child.

Story Notes

I wrote this story circa 1980, lost the manuscript, found a fragment of it, and recreated the story sometime in the 90’s. I don’t remember now why the original narrator’s voice was that of an old man, but I kept it that way because it seemed to fit. This is one of those mostly-unpublishable types of stories, not because there’s anything specifically wrong with it, but because (a) it’s depressing, (b) it consists of a flashback surrounded by events only emotively connected with the flashback, and (c) there’s nothing specifically good about it. I present it to you here because those very few readers who like it will really like it.